UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon must skip Tehran honors for Iranian nutjob
Don’t salute Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as new head of Non-Aligned Movement

August 15, 2012
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 
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It is astonishing that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki- moon is entertaining the possibility of lending his global prestige to the nuclear-mad, anti-Semitic regime of http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Mahmoud+Ahmadinejad \o Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ban must disavow any intention of traveling to Tehran for Ahmadinejad’s elevation to chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of 118 member states, mostly from the Third World.
Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei look forward to hosting more than 40 heads of state in the last week of August as supposed evidence that Iran is run by respected leaders. Ban will shred the credibility he has earned as secretary general should he clasp hands with the madmen.
He must not bolster their standing and undermine his own.
Not when Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to develop a nuclear weapon that could be used against Israel.
Not when Iran has long refused to allow the UN’s nuclear watchdog to fully inspect the country’s atomic facilities.
Not when economic sanctions, aimed at persuading Ahmadinejad and Khamenei to step back from the bomb, are belatedly biting.
Not when Ahmadinejad has added to his calls for destroying Israel by saying, “any freedom lover and justice-seeker in the world must do their best for the annihilation of the Zionist regime.”
Not when Iran’s armed forces chief of staff has announced that the country is “committed to the full annihilation of the Zionist regime to the end.”
Not when Iran’s vice president declared at a UN-sponsored conference that “Zionists” control international narcotics trafficking and are responsible for killing black babies.
Not when Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terror, including suicide bombings against Israelis, and provides arms to Hamas and Hezbollah.
And, most definitely, not when Iran’s fanatic nuclear ambitions are pushing Israel and the United States toward the need for military action.
Ahmadinejad and Khamenei want nothing more than to make a useful idiot of Ban at the conference and then to bend the Non-Aligned Movement to their aims.
At this meeting, they plan to pursue support for Iran’s nuclear enrichment program while playing the innocents whose citizens are being unfairly victimized by economic sanctions.
Ultimately, the goal is to rally opposition to an attack. Indeed, Iranian officials are touting the summit as a “great achievement,” as proof that the country is no longer a pariah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has smartly been outfront in urging Ban not to play directly into Ahmadinejad’s hands. He should not have had to ask. Ban should stay the hell out of Iran.